Alpha Male
by saichick-Anna-Erishkigal
Summary: Pepper's getting a lot more attention now that she's CEO and Tony's a little jealous.  Inspired by Dryvodkamartini's wonderful bandwidth-exceeding Live Journal .gif's  snicker .


Story: Alpha Dog  
Author: saichick  
Challenge: Pepperony 100  
Theme: 067 Male  
Rating: T

Timeline: IM2

_Preview: Pepper's getting a lot more attention now that she's CEO and Tony's a little jealous. Inspired by Dryvodkamartini's wonderful bandwidth-exceeding Live Journal .gif's (snicker)._

What was _up_ with him?

To say that she had been flabbergasted when Tony made her CEO of his company would be an understatement. I mean, sure, she'd been doing more than half of his job for him for the past decade. In fact, ever since Obadiah had had his little "plane crash" six months ago, Pepper had pretty much been doing 100% of his job. Being CEO of a major corporation was never a goal she had aspired to. However, her organizational skills were superb, she had the accounting and finance background and, now that she thought about it, it made sense. Who better to bridge the gap between running a company and the creative genius who churned out the technology that company sold than the person who'd already been doing it for over a decade?

As for Tony, while he was being enormously supportive, even proud of her, he had also been acting strange. Even ignoring his greater-than-usual impulsivity and unpredictability since he had gotten back from Afghanistan (which even on a good day had always been high), there seemed to be a new edge to Tonys' behavior. On the one hand, he seemed to be making a heroic effort to not place so many personal demands on her time and encourage her to fly. Now that she had the _authority_ to do the job she'd already been doing for the past 10 years, Pepper's confidence had soared. She felt differently. She walked differently. She dressed differently. She even related to Tony differently ... more as an equal or even a superior than an employee.

On the other hand … well … let's just say that if she didn't know any better, she would think Tony was a little jealous. Actually, extremely jealous. She'd had this German Shepherd as a teenager, Geronimo. Whenever she got home, whether school or a friends' house, Geronimo would come running up to her with his tail wagging to greet her. It had been typical alpha male canine behavior, but Geronimo would circle her for quite some time after she got back, sniffing her hand, her clothing, even her crotch, sniffing out clues about where she had been, what she had been doing, and whether she had "cheated" on him by petting another dog. Then, for the rest of the day, Geronimo would trot faithfully at her side, running circles around her, growling at anybody who approached, and peeing on every bush and shrub within 100 feet of wherever she walked. If she didn't know any better, Tony Stark had developed a habit of "peeing on fire hydrants" whenever he went out in public with her.

Pepper laughed aloud as she glided into the dining area to watch Tony's car race in the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique. Tony trotted at her side, circling her and keeping the hangers-on at bay, just the way her dearly departed canine friend used to do. Until now, whenever they had attended events such as this, Tony had always been the center of attention. He would strut in like a peacock, playing the room like a maestro playing a symphony, while Pepper would follow along behind him with her eyes glued to her PDA, keeping track of where had to be and who he had to be with next. Not maliciously … her job _had _been, after all, to make him shine, but Pepper had always been an afterthought.

Now, however, Pepper was every bit as much the center of attention, if not more so, than Tony Stark, and Tony had apparently nominated himself to be her protector. Although Pepper habitually avoided attention, usually because the attention she got was being caused by Tony's outrageous behavior, this time, she had to admit, she enjoyed it. She had worked hard to get where she was today, she had earned it, and quite frankly she was enjoying finally being recognized as the person running the show. Instead of people introducing themselves to Tony, and then having Tony introduce them to her as an afterthought (_if _he even thought to do so at all), people were practically shoving Tony aside to meet her. Pepper watched with amusement as people approached. Tony would interject himself between them, practically growling at them to back off. Just like her dog.

Pepper was enjoying toying with Tony to see how he'd trot through his paces. Walking at a deliberately brisk pace, she forced _him_ to keep up with _her_ for a change. Gliding into the main dining room of the restaurant, she noticed out of the corner of her eye how he darted slightly in front of her like a dog tugging at the leash into a crowd of people, puffing out his chest and enlarging the range of where he gestured with his hands like a dog pointing it's ears and raising its hackles to protect his master. If he'd had a tail, she thought, it certainly would have been pointed straight up. People kept rushing up to her to introduce themselves, but Tony kept sweeping them aside and keeping them at arms' length. Hmmmm …. Just like Geronimo had used to do. Pepper could practically see the fur, ahem, hair rising on Tony's hackles as he rose to attention and kept all comers out of her path.

As they approached the table, she noticed Tony's protective demeanor, darting behind her to cut off the maitre de who attempted to seat her and pushing in her seat himself, practically elbowing the poor man out of the way. Pepper suppressed a smirk as she pictured Tony growling at the man and peeing on a bush. Then, a short while later, another gentleman, one of Tony's business peers, came up and introduced himself to her. Tony placed himself between them under the guise of shaking the man's hand, then practically forcibly escorted the fellow engineer out of her path and back to his seat, away from her.

"Green is not your color, Tony," she said as he trotted back to her side with a proud expression, as though he expected to be scratched behind the ears and told what a good boy he was. She laughed aloud as her mind's eye projected an image of Tony lifting his leg like a dog and peeing on the man's table, scratching dirt with his hind legs onto where he'd just marked his territory as though to say "MY PEPPER!"

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"You," she replied.

"Whadaya mean, me?" he inquired.

"Oh, just you … being you," Pepper laughed as Tony did it again, spreading one arm to clear another man out of her path as she walked, placing a hand at the small of her back to steer her away and sniping a snarky retort at the man trying to get Pepper's attention. Everything about Tony's demeanor screamed jealousy. The way he kept her close as if she was "his" property, stood between her and others, even the set of his chin as he talked to her. _Growl _… she thought.

Of course, with Tony Stark, she always had to be sure he didn't wrap his paws around her leg in public and start humping it. Pepper laughed again as their two least favorite people, Justin Hammer and Christine Everheart, slithered up to them and started sucking up to the both of them. It was time to let Fido do his job.

"I'm going to go wash…" she told Tony, smirking as she left him there sandwiched between two of his least favorite people in the world and let _him _deal with his not-so-nice hangers-on. This felt kind of good, Pepper thought to herself. Now she knew what it felt like to be Tony Stark!

"_Good dog!_" Growl at not-so-nice people. Pepper decided she liked having an alpha-male like Tony Stark as her personal watchdog. _"Just don't bite anybody..."_


End file.
